Enchantress help

I am starting up an enchantress and i am wondering about skill placement. I had a search for a guide and found the one linked in the FAQ, but when it reads like this...

If you follow my build to the letter, these are the items that will give you strength:
+10-20 (Annihilus)
+15 (Nosferatu's Coil)
+30 (Breath of the Dying)
+20 (Chains of Honor)
+2 (Harlequin Crest)

Click to expand...

Well you can guess how far read into it.

The main thing I am want to know is what skills I should go for after max Warmth, Enchant and Fire Mastery. Static and Teleport as 1 point wonders. I want to go melee and want to know what people have experienced with the cold armours and Energy Shield/Telekinesis. I am going untwinked and with a few boss runs (I tire of them quickly) as I quest.

You need to decide what type of damage you want to do to fire immune monsters. Physical damage is one option, and a (non-act 3) merc can help you a lot with that. On low /players settings, Crushing Blow is da bomb, both for merc and sorceress. Can be attained easily already in late normal/early NM, in the form of the 'Strength' runeword, and crafted blood gloves.

I like Shiver Armor. The defense bonus is good and itÂ´s great for giving you extra time to teleport away if you risk getting mobbed, or just slow down what you melee. Depending on what you want, you can have 1 or many points. If you choose a Defiance merc, I advice you to spend many points in Shiver Armor. With decent equipment (even something like a 'Smoke' elite armor) you can get many thousand points of defense.

If you want to melee, get high dexterity (for blocking) and a high blocking shield. High dexterity will also provide your Enchant with some basic Attack Rating to multiply.

Other options vs. fire immunes include used Frozen Orb (boring, but effective) or pumping Lightning Mastery a lot and use a high lightning damage weapon. (e.g. an Arcing Bone/Tomb Wand, which you can buy from NM Drognan at level 54+).

I have a (slightly odd) melee enchantress at the moment in act 5 NM - and would definitely agree with Jiansonz recomendation of a point in Shiver armour (in fact it was on Jiansonz's advice I took it in the first place). It is been very very good - the freeze stops you getting mobbed. I was worried it might be a waste because I also have a Holy freeze merc.

It is not - in practice you'll oftn be leading your merc and the Holy freeze aura takes time to catch- also I'm not sure but monsters seem very frozon - not sure if there is a Holy Freeze slow effect on top of the Shiver! The additonal plus to defence can't be bad either.

I have a point in the next cold armour to use against ranged attackers (not for the damge for the freeze)- not used it much yet but have done so occaisionally. Might be more useful in Hell.

The one point I also spent into energy shield I'm not sure of. Aside from casting static and teleport it seems like a good idea. But against elemental attacks it drains in an eye blink. I can see it might be of use once you have static'd (in Hell it only goes down to half hit points) and you don't need teleport e.g. fighting Durial. Static him down to half and then put the shield up. Maybe a few other bossess?

Problem with it is its long duration (strangely - when its useful its moderately useful when you don't want it its a pain).

Also agree CB all the way and max block with a shield. Also like Smoke and Rhyme. I have a smoke Dusk Shroud and a Rhyme Tower Shield.

For fire imunes my favorite option is Lightning Mastery, use some Lightning Charms and you deal an aditional damage to all monsters(except LI) and have a fast weapon with lots of Lightning Damage on switch for LI.
With some +skill items and 20 LM you deal 100 Lightning Damage = 400 Lightning damage(+-)
It's very good the aditional damage.
I used one point only in the first Armor for the extra defence.

Enchantress isn't the best char to do boss runs in Hell, lots of FI .
Best things to this build:
Fast weapon(I used Passion phase blade for Zeal but other don't like it)
High Level Pre-buffer Enchant
FHR - 60 or 86
Good & Fast Block
items that give +Life or Vit
Items that give +Resists